Egypts emboldened military on Friday deployed troops around parliament and established checkpoints across the capital a day before presidential elections pitting one of their own against an Islamist outsider from a long-outlawed group.
Uniformed security officials barred lawmakers from entering the parliament building a day after an explosive court ruling cleared the way for the dissolution of a democratically elected legislature. The ruling also accorded all legislative and budgetary powers to the countrys ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which was preparing to unilaterally define the powers of the head of state due to be elected this weekend.
Witnesses and state media said thousands of military police in battle dress fanned out across the capital and other cities in the early hours of the morning, setting up checkpoints and searching cars and minibuses after a court granted the armed forces police and intelligence operatives broad arrest powers over civilians. State television showed footage of convoys of trucks filled with soldiers.
They were reportedly being positioned to safeguard the elections.
The Brotherhood has responded angrily to the moves, which appear to be aimed at weakening it.
[Dawn] Pakistain's most revered social worker has been given round-the-clock protection against an alleged Taliban threat, officials said Friday.
Abdul Sattar Edhi, 85, runs the country's largest charity, which operates hundreds of ambulances and shelters for women, children and the destitute.
Described as a "living saint" for his modest lifestyle and charitable crusade, Edhi has won international peace awards and is one of Pakistain's most popular figures.
But for the first time he now has round-the-clock police protection in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , Pakistain's largest city of 18 million where he is based.
"There is a threat to him by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), which wants to kidnap him and use him to get their set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! bully boyz released in exchange," a Pak security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Two armed coppers, who each work a 12-hour shift, have been going everywhere with Edhi since June 5, the official said.
Aslam Khan, a senior police official, said "a letter containing a hit-list has been intercepted, which includes Edhi and two police officials, including me," he said.
Khan and Rao Anwar, the other police official on the alleged hit list, have both narrowly escaped kabooms in Bloody Karachi claimed by the TTP.
Khan's house was flattened by a powerful bomb on September 19, 2011, while he was sleeping. He escaped unhurt but eight people were killed.
Anwar was in an armoured personnel carrier on April 5 when it was rammed by a motorcyclist laden with explosives, killing four people.
Edhi said he was carrying on regardless. "I have accepted the guards, but that won't deter me from doing my job to serve my people," he told AFP.
But Edhi's son and deputy, Faisal, told AFP that the Taliban had visited his father's office on June 6 to assure him that he was not a target.
"They told my father that they respect him and admire whatever he does, and won't target him ever," Faisal told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/16/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: TTP
Syria's chemical weapons program has been focus of Israeli intelligence operations since the mid-1970s.
It was July 2007 and in Aleppo, Syria, the muezzins were just starting to issue the early-morning call for prayers. It was a different Syria at the time -- Bashar Assad's rule appeared stable and was not threatened by rebels. Barely anyone knew that not far from the city, Assad was building a nuclear reactor that would be destroyed a few months later in a lightning Israeli airstrike.
But then the city was rocked by an explosion. Looking out their windows, residents could see smoke rising from a military base located on the outskirts of the ancient city. The damage was isolated to a single building, one that very few people -- even those who served in the base -- knew the purpose of.
Fifteen people were reported killed and several dozen more were rushed to the Aleppo University Hospital nearby with severe burns all over their bodies. Later, some residents would hear rumors about a number of Iranians being among the wounded and yelling out in Farsi as they were treated for their wounds.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/16/2012 00:20 ||
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[16 views]
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#1
There is little doubt that an attack against Israel from foreign soil using Chem/Bio armed SCUD rockets would prompt an immediate nuclear retaliation.
#3
besoeker.
Against who? Whom? Whatever.
That's the thing with proliferated wmd. You might have an idea who made them--three years earlier, say--and maybe even the provenance to the actor who set them off in your cities.
While I might be sympathetic to the Third Conjecture--see Wretchard--if things get bad enough and we nuke everybody, there's probably a limit. If we don't nuke everybody because whatever it was isn't bad enough to make us go nuts--Third Conjecture--we have to choose whether and who.
And "who" is the question.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
06/16/2012 10:13 Comments ||
Top||
#5
bman. If we go nuts--Third Conjecture--we won't "start with" Iran. It will be ToT.
We didn't go nuke ToT aftr 9-11. Nor did Russia after Beslan.
Suppose we have a Beslan including mustard gas. Five hundred dead kids. Would there be the political will to go nuts? After the second? The third...?
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
06/16/2012 12:38 Comments ||
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#6
I'd go with Captain Renault
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/16/2012 14:12 Comments ||
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#7
I didn't want to say anything but the Juices get blamed for too much stuff already, so I confess... I was me. And Frank.
[An Nahar] Hizbullah Secretary-General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... said Thursday that the party's missiles are now "capable of reaching vital targets inside Israel," pointing out that the "Israelis themselves acknowledge Hizbullah's missile power."
They also acknowledge what will happen if Hizb'allah dares to use it...
In an interview with the Iranian television, Nasrallah added that the military capabilities of his group "cannot be compared to the previous phase," describing Israel's threats to attack Iran as "propaganda to blackmail the international community."
According to the transcript of the interview published on the website of Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam satellite TV network, Nasrallah added: "We should thank Iran because it supported us in reaching our objectives," warning of the "attempts of the United States to conspire against the revolutions and Islamic renaissance in the region."
He also said that "Israel, the U.S. and some other Western countries along with certain Arab nations are seeking to topple Bashir al-Assad's regime with the help of al-Qaeda," adding that such actions "prove that they are not seeking reforms in Syria."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/16/2012 00:00 ||
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[9 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
[An Nahar] Russia on Friday denied holding discussions with other nations on a political transformation in Syria that would include the departure of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... "I read somewhere today that supposedly, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said something along the lines of the United States and Russia discussing a political transformation in Syria after the departure of Bashir al-Assad," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told news hounds.
"If this was really said, this is not true. There were no such discussions and there could not have been such discussions. This completely contradicts our position," he told news hounds.
"We are not involved in regime change through either the U.N. Security Council or through involvement in sort of political conspiracies."
His comments came only moments after the foreign minister of La Belle France also mentioned holding such talks with Syria's Soviet-era ally.
"The Russians are not today attached to the person of Bashir al-Assad," Laurent Fabius said.
"They clearly see he is a tyrant and a murderer. But they are sensitive about who might take his place, if Assad is ousted. The discussion is about that," he told La Belle France Inter radio.
Lavrov also denied holding such talks with La Belle France.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/16/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Moscow cares about its Mediterranean fleet [Tartarus] + Caucasus, Central Asia security + reducing tensions wid Assad BFF RISING IRAN + IRAN-VS-TURKEY which also affects the Caucasus, Central Asia situation.
FYI ANY EXPLOSION IN ASIA MINOR INCLUD IRAN MAY ALSO AFFECT EASTERN EUROPE, WHICH RUSSIA + RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH [Moscow = aka "The Third Rome"] DEEMS TO BE ITS "SPHERE/DOMAIN"
OF CULTURE + INFLUENCE.
#3
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > TURKEY + QATAR TO TAKE JOINT MILITARY ACTION AGZ SYRIA? | [GlobalResearch] POSSIBLE DEAL BETWEEN TURKEY + QATAR ON MILITARY OPERATION AGZ SYRIA.
versus
* IIRC SAME > QATAR + SAUDI ARABIA CONSPIRE TO TOPPLE IRAQI GOVERNMENT: MALIKI.
Looks like Iran may yet find itself in a multi-front conflict agz these three regional rivals - Qatar in particular becomes that much more vital to any anti-Nucprog US = US-led Coalition iff Iran's schema to keep US CVNS + Amphibs, + Allied, out of the Persian Gulf proper + limited to the Sea of Oman + beyond succeeds???
Unless the USDOD can initiate a significant military buildup in Bahrain, espec BMD?, methinks its safe to say that the US Fifth Fleet base there will be all but absolut destroyed via Iran saturation strike. The USDOD must be aware of this threat because they have repor begun "expansion" of the Bahrain base.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Syria's chemical weapons program has been focus of Israeli intelligence operations since the mid-1970s. 
Hizbullah Secretary-General 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
